Creative Writing Commons^™

Let The Waters Swarm With A Swarm Of Living Beings; O What A Marvel It Appeared To Me, Padraig O Tuama

CutBank

No abstract provided.

5 Poems, Rebecca Ruth Gould

Comparative Woman

These poems examine the challenges facing the woman creator, and focus in particular on the problem of the muse, and how this relates to the feminist reconceptualization of traditional notions of gender and sexuality. As part of this broader poetic inquiry, I also challenge traditional notions of monogamy and heterosexual desire.

The Kin-Ship, Zheng Moham Wang

Comparative Woman

This is a group of two English poems the author composed separately in 2019 and 2021 about the imaginary scenes of his grandpa and mother from a Iu-Mien family of Southeast Asia and Southwestern China. The group was submitted to the upcoming Kinship volume of the Comparative Woman journal of Louisiana State University.

Saprotrophic, Hailey Jean Pedersen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Using the foundational lens of poets like Carl Phillips and Louise Glück and philosopher Derrida, this poetry collection emphasizes the recognition and exploration of complex human experiences through the power of deconstruction. I occupy conflicting emotional spaces and multifaceted identities using the vehicle of poetry, challenging societal norms that villainize the open discussion of complex experiences like grief, sexuality, and addiction.

Harvest: A Story Of Afropessimism, Briana Williams, Briana Williams

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Afropessimism is the idea that Black people will never be able to truly overcome the centuries of racism and oppression they have faced. A bleak notion, the idea heavily contrasts with Afrofuturism, the ways in which Black people use technology to regain their autonomy and rise from the societal binds they’re placed in. This story focuses on how even in the supposedly more evolved and progressive political landscape of the modern world, Black people still cannot escape the shackles of racism, particularly in the United States. Taking the common themes of and ideologies of Afropessimism, Harvest follows the story of …

Ferment, Casey Carpenter

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The fermentation process – an act of breaking down, letting go, and moving forward – is used by the author as poetic lens and as a narrative tool for self-reflection, self-transformation, cultural reflection, and cultural transformation. Akin to our own adolescent maturation, plants, fruits, and vegetables develop protective barriers around their most vulnerable parts in reaction to the health and condition of their lived environment. While serving a purpose of survival in the moment, these barriers will later cause the food to rot and spoil if left unchecked. The act of fermentation is thus explored as a managed process of …

Milk Tooth, 2023, Macy Bernard, Victoria Bohney, Mathea Brink, Mackenzie Britton, Shawn Cruze, Madelyn Dakken, Jada Dokken, Isaiah Dunham, Liz Fisher, Brooke Froehle, Oak Greyson, Gordon Hess, Joseph Kettelhodt, Hannah Lewis, Marissa Marxhausen, Hunter Meland, Autumn Miles, Natalie Nelson, Emma Niessink, Lauren Winkelman, Luke Yartz

Milk Tooth

"Writings by Bemidji State University Students". Sponsored by the Bemidji State University English Department.

Guidebook On Making A House A Home, Alana Stallings

Scripps Senior Theses

This is a collection of poems by Alana Stallings that translates emotional trauma into fictional landscape and character. Both of these operate within the energetic structure of a home, at once pushing against and obeying this enforced confinement. Within that tension, Stallings explores questions of family, selfhood, belonging, displacement, and cycles.

Witness This Thing So Tender, Erin Marie White

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

At once fantastical and down-to-earth, the poems of Witness This Thing So Tender are concerned with the convergence of the speaker’s many selves and influences. Gritty and mysterious happenings shape the speaker’s physical, emotional, and psychological circumstances in the world. Whether the triggering topic is ecological, parental, or sepulchral, the work of the poems is to examine and integrate the changeable natures of memory and reality.

Each poem in the second movement of the collection, entitled “Lunar Cycle,” employs the idiom Once upon a time as its entry point. This small, well-worn turn of phrase operates as a springboard into …

Theory Of Care, Gabriella Ann Graceffo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

With a backdrop of the body and its inner forms, Theory of Care is a collection of poems and lyric excerpts that explores themes of queer sexuality, physical and mental health, etymology, desire, and physicality. It coheres moments of internal reckoning with an exploration of how trauma lives in the body, particularly the queer femme body. By accessing various landscapes including the medical sphere, family dynamics, and the social environments of the South, the collection grapples with different vernaculars to question how the language used to discuss (or dismiss) trauma dramatically alters the perception of those experiences.

Flowerama, Demitri Cullen

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

From The Notes App, Marc Chiurco

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Engl 211w: Intro To Nonfiction (Points Of Entry And/Or Exit Wounds), Heather Simon

Open Educational Resources

We will explore the notion of creativity as it pertains to new ways of engaging familiar topics and carving out frameworks for exploring uncharted territory. We will actively read and respond to works of creative nonfiction to enrich our understanding of structure, style, and language. Assigned readings will demonstrate how creative nonfiction can encompass a variety of forms (think: reportage, braided essay, erasure, visual essay) and draw from both research and experience to offer a unique perspective and elicit an emotional response. We will develop our own creative nonfiction toolbox through a series of reflections, creative exercise, and projects. We …

Minds Of The Mental: A Poetry Journal, Aviyah Washington

A with Honors Projects

This honors project shares 12 original poems written by the author.

Wayfinding, Kalani N. Padilla

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Wet Specimen, Abigail Lee Raley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Cystic fibrosis is a condition which thickens the mucus throughout the body of the afflicted patient. Bob Flanagan, in his book The Pain Journal, ventures to record that sort of physical experience, as it pertains to the daily practices of his art, leading up to his death. Flanagan expounds on given relationships between his sadomasochistic performance art and the pain of his body in his poem “Why.” Richard Siken, too, in his book Crush, explores the embodied violence of gay lust, love, and obsession. WET SPECIMEN finds itself amongst these traditions, as it ventures to explore the animality …

Muele Las Palabras Con Canela: How Queer Xicanx Writing Practices Reclaim Indigeneity, Karen Zurita

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

My thesis project is a multi-genre story in itself, dedicated to my community. By using Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel’s Decolonize Your Diet, I emphasize the importance of Xicanx writing needing to reflect their Indigenous identity by intertwining the spiritual and physical in their writing practices. In the process of creating this thesis project I was able to heal my own writing and have it shapeshift into creating a summer poetry class for high school students in the Humboldt County Area. In all, I found these writing practices to be crucial …

Asked For Another Mountain, Nichole Lynn Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Working Class Roots, Joanne Detore

Publications

No abstract provided.

Death Spaces And Distant Skies (Every Day We Say Goodbye), Renee Estee

Theses and Dissertations

Linking ideas and imagery of the Australian Outback, Hauntology and Orphism, my practice highlights myth-making and rituals surrounding mourning, celebration and commemoration. Operating as visual love letters and epitaphs, my paintings coalesce figuration and abstraction to conjure spaces where I can commune with the deceased and contend with future loss.

The Advancement Of Surrealism: Navigating The Logical Implications Of Surrealism In Poetry Through Time, Brandon Hemsworth

Honors Projects

Surrealism is a complex medium of artistic expression that has persisted through the modern and postmodern time periods and into the contemporary. This project attempts to shine light on the importance of Surrealism by researching the rational implications of its irrational nature. I approached this question in two separate manners: One in a research perspective and one in a creative perspective. This project includes my research on the advancement of Surrealism and 15 poems that I have composed in reflection of Surrealism, Modernism, Postmodernism, the contemporary, and Anti-Realism. The conclusions of this project have important implications that have a common …

Vol. Lix, No. 5: Whitman Sisters: Hannah Whitman Heyde, Maire Mullins, Karen Karbiener, Jennifer Crandall, Howard Nelson

The Hollins Critic

No abstract provided.

The Book Of Ela Or Apokalypsis In Five Acts, Noah Leventhal

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Book of Ela or Apokalypsis in Five acts seeks first and foremost to investigate the layers of mental abstraction in which the human mind engages when thinking, and by extension, when writing. Writing and thinking do not end at the boundaries of genre. As such, I felt the styles therein should not stop at those boundaries either. Making use of influences such as Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, Renee Gladman and Rosemarie Waldrop, I have endeavored to use narrative as a to form more fully and poetically explore the contours of language, and by extension, the contours of the mind. …

Shades Of Blue, Allison D. Thomas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

"Shades of Blue" is a confessional narrative that explores the ways in which our lives can be covered in a tinge of color. The experiences that shaped this collection are marked by the calm powder blues and rough midnight blues that change the way we see and think about the world. This narrative work took on a confessional voice because of the autobiographical nature of confessional poetry. Like other confessional collections this work is an exploration of the self and the truth of life. This collection was constructed by employing various poetic devices and forms. Several poems take on correspondent …

Vatra: A Poetic Memoir, Ashley Nichole Stevens

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

When I initially began researching for and composing this collection, the idea I had in mind was a simple one: tell my great grandfather's story, on many Lemko-American immigrants lived in the early 1900s. However, it took several months for me to realize this was not the complete story. It required refinement. While I had always felt a significant connection to this particular side of my family, I could never articulate why. The genealogical and historical research I conducted spoke for me. My great grandfather survived numerous traumas associated with being an ethnic minority in his homeland as well as …

Winds & Waves: A Collection Of Short Stories & Poems [Vientos Y Olas: Una Colección De Cuentos Y Poemas], Joann Balderrama

Theses and Dissertations

Winds & Waves: A Collection of Short Stories & Poems, presents works of fiction telling a cohesive story with themes of survival, joy in simplicity, and resilience. My work will show the gradual exposing of moods as well as experimentation with writing techniques in several genres. My writing has developed to include a voice of introspection.

My thesis title includes winds and waves to signify change and transformation. They also refer to the movement in nature. Nature is included in a lot of my pieces. Water is an important symbolic component in several of the pieces as well.

Being …

Monsters & Men, Christopher Ernest Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

Monsters & Men is a collection of poetry and illustrations that explores the complex emotions associated with masculinity, grief, and personal development. I achieve this by heavily reflecting on my relationship with my late father and using this medium as an outlet to express my trauma in a healthy manner. How we perceive ourselves as men, and what is possible, is not reflected enough in society and I aim to be a proponent in stimulating the conversation revolving around men’s mental health. Men and the patriarchy impose themselves on others to the point where we need to address the unethical …

Happy Objects And Bloom Spaces: Investigating The Potential Of Rupi Kaur's Poetry, Miguel Vega

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In response to the movement of what is considered and labeled as “Instagram poetry,” poet and critic Rebecca Watts argues that to consider “artless” poetry as “poetry” we are denigrating the artform. This project centers around Watts’ claim that “the reader is dead” due to their encounter with such poetry. This project acts as a conversation that seeks to understand why certain forms of art are considered a “threat” to those who engage with them, as well as to their respective fields. Using affect theory (specifically the theory of the happy object) we can begin to understand why we gravitate …

Theorizing Autistic Sexualities As Collective Poetic Experiences, Anna Nygren, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article is a palimpsest emerging as part of a project of collective autoethnographic writing on the theme of sexuality. It draws on the intensification of friendly writing, friendly as in friends with benefits. We write as autistic and neuroqueer subjects, writing until our textualities becomes sexualities. We write until the text becomes a room – call it Earth or call it Body, call it Brain or call it Heart – in which one could crack meanings―but these are not the most important ones. Instead of meanings and positions, we want to write about movements in time. The time it …

(Im)Possibilities, M. Francyne Huckaby

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

No abstract provided.